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A great way to fight hate speech

Submitted by Ruby Sinreich on Thu, 12/06/2007 - 16:37

My good friend Mark Kleinschmidt is an anti-death penalty attorney and a twice-elected member of the Chapel Hill Town Council. He is also gay. This last fact qualified him for membership on a list that is making the rounds on hate sites called the "National List Of Openly-Homosexual Public Officials." (And no I am not going to link to these fools, you can probably Google it.)

Mark discovered this list and posted about it on his blog: Anti-gay hate sites target gay elected officials. Since Mark linked to a couple of the sites hosting the lists, they found him and linked back, sending readers over to Mark's blog where they are posting hateful comments and generally exposing themselves as the ignorant trolls they are.

I have a great idea about how to counter this. I have pledged to donate $5 to Mark's re-election campaign* every single time someone posts a hateful or derogatory comment on or link to Mark's blog. That means these creeps have already raised $25 to keep this gay man in elected office. Let's see how much more they can raise!

Won't you join in this campaign? You can pledge any amount you like. Just post a comment on Mark's blog that you are taking up Ruby's Challenge to let others know what impact they are having.

* If Mark chooses not to run for Town Council again in 2009, he can keep this money for a future campaign. I'm sure there will be one in his future. :-)

I appreciate the effort to turn the comments I've received into something valuable, but given the work I've been doing this year on voter-owned elections, as of now, I'm not planning on seeking individual contributions beyond those necessary to qualify for Chapel Hill's new voter-owned campaign financing plan. The program is one I've been fighting for for years. Earlier this year Chapel Hill received legislative authority to implement a program for the 2009 and 2011 election cycles, I and the other members of our committee are currently developing a plan for public input on how our program should work. We are targeting late spring for passage.

How about making a contribution to one or more of my favorite charities?

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